The Federal Government has approved a new policy mandating the submission of students’ theses and final year projects into the Nigeria Education Repository and Databank (NERD) as a compulsory requirement for mobilisation into the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC).
Effective October 6, no graduate — whether trained locally or abroad — will be mobilised for or exempted from the NYSC without proof of compliance.
The directive was contained in a circular issued by the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Senator George Akume, who conveyed President Bola Tinubu’s approval on Saturday. It stated that NYSC mobilisation criteria have been revised to align with the President’s regulation requiring proof of NERD policy compliance for all prospective corps members.
The NERD policy requires all students to deposit their academic outputs into the national database, serving both as quality assurance and as proof of continuous academic enrolment and affiliation. NERD spokesperson, Haula Galadima, explained that the database would also raise supervision standards by holding supervisors and heads of departments accountable.
“If our eminent scholars are aware that their names will appear next to those of the students they supervise on a globally available platform, the likelihood is that each lecturer would up his or her standard. Very few would want their names tied to poorly produced academic works,” she said.
In addition, the policy features a monetisation mechanism to reward students and lecturers with lifetime revenues from their deposited works.
The SGF clarified that the enforcement applies to all graduates from Nigerian and foreign institutions but excludes serving corps members or those mobilised before October 6.
According to the Federal Government, the reform aims to curb certificate racketeering, safeguard intellectual property, and strengthen the credibility of higher education qualifications in Nigeria.
